HTTP 200 OK
Allow: GET, PUT, PATCH, DELETE, HEAD, OPTIONS
Content-Type: application/json
Vary: Accept
{
"id": 229346,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/229346/?format=api",
"text_counter": 229,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Prof. Maathai",
"speaker_title": "",
"speaker": {
"id": 226,
"legal_name": "Wangari Muta Maathai",
"slug": "wangari-maathai"
},
"content": "Thank you, Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, for giving me this opportunity to join my colleagues in congratulating His Excellency the President for his Speech. There are a lot of good things that have been done by the NARC Government. We have enumerated many of those issues. Many of them were articulated in the Speech by His Excellency the President. We have many things to congratulate ourselves about. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I want to raise an issue that is of major concern to all of us - climate change! I want to draw attention to the fact that, while we, as a Government, say that we are committed to protecting the environment, there is more of talk than action. It is extremely important for us, as a Government, to look seriously at an issue that is now occupying the minds of many people in the world. Many of our people are already experiencing drought. Some areas, such as the North Eastern parts of our country, experienced a prolonged drought recently. We saw our people, livestock and wildlife dying. Shortly after that, we had rains. We saw people perishing in the floods. There is something very serious about a country that cannot control drought and floods. We keep on saying, especially through the Ministry of Water and Irrigation, that we need to harvest rain water. However, I do not see enough direct effort of working with our farmers, our Provincial Administration - especially chiefs and DOs - and the army who have very heavy equipment to dig trenches, furrows and dams, so that we can control flash floods. We should not only harvest rain water, but also protect our people from perishing in the floods. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, the people living around mountains, for example Mount Kenya, have noticed that many rivers are drying up, and that former big rivers are now small streams. This is partly because the glaciers, the snow and ice on our mountains is melting away. Records show that within the last 40 to 50 years, much of the snow on Mount Kenya has melted. This is probably partly due to climate change, but it is also due to the fact that we continue to harvest trees in our forests. We continue to treat forests as if they were resources which we must exploit. We put back very little in terms of re-afforestation and protecting them. This is a very serious issue. When these rivers finally stop flowing, and the rainfall pattern in these mountainous regions around Mount Kenya, Mount Elgon, Mau complex and the Aberdares changes, millions of our people will be in danger. That may not be very far in the future. We need to take these matters very seriously. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I want to commend Members of Parliament because I have noticed, through the Greenbelt Movement offices, that many of them have approached that office to be assisted with the campaign to plant trees in their areas. I am hoping that this is not as a result of the fact that this is an election year. I have a feeling that this is mainly because of the March 27, 2007 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 149 concern that many hon. Members have about the environment in their constituencies. I am very happy that many hon. Members are taking this matter seriously and are encouraging their constituents to plant trees. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, as you may know, we recently launched The Billion Tree Campaign. We are trying to encourage people all over the world to plant trees. We are trying to say that climate change will affect everybody in the world. But it is also true that scientists are saying that Africa, in particular, will be very negatively impacted on by the climate change. Rivers will dry, rainfall patterns will change causing droughts, desertification, crop failure and starvation. These are some of the issues that are going to hit Africa in particular. So, we, as Africans, and especially in our country, ought to be in the forefront of re-afforestation programmes, water harvesting programmes and other programmes that stop desertification such as removal of vegetation. But so often, you find us doing just the opposite. I just wish that there was a way in which we could reverse this. Kenya has promised to plant about 11 million trees in this Billion Tree Campaign. I think Kenya should be planting many more trees than that. We have so much land which we can cover with trees. I remember when we were at Bomas, we had calculated that if this country passed a law to say that everybody who has a piece of land should devote a part of it to tree planting, and planted at least 25 trees per acre, then we would be able to succeed in having 10 per cent of our country covered with vegetation. Now, there are a lot of people who have land in this country but they do not plant trees. I do not know why it has to take so long before the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources or the Ministry of Lands can say - I think it is possible for the Minister to say it - that everybody who has a piece of land is required to put 10 per cent of their land under tree cover. But the trees do not have to occupy a small piece of land. They can be planted all over an acre and calculation done to see it is 25 trees per acre. That is achievable, and these are some of the doable things we Kenyans can do, and very quickly we can save our country from desertification. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I also want to say that in the process of taking care of our environment, we would also take care of our wildlife. A lot of our wildlife is disappearing because we use the resources that are brought by tourists to do other things. We invest very little of those resources in our conservation efforts of some of the most valuable national parks such as the Maasai Mara Game Reserve. If we valued our wildlife, we would be very serious about protecting the Mau Complex. We would also invest some of the dollars that come into our country through tourism back in the national parks to make sure that our animals are protected. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, we celebrate when the influx of tourists in our country increases, but I know that no tourist comes to Kenya to see Kenyans. Tourists come to see wildlife. They come to see the exotic elephants, lions, rhinos and other animals. Therefore, we should appreciate the fact that our wildlife is very unique. This unique type of wildlife we have in this part of the world gives us an advantage. Tourists will not come here to see architecture such as that of Rome, Spain or India, but they will come here to see our beautiful and very exotic wildlife. I wish every Kenyan would see wildlife and desire to protect it because it is a national resource that God gave us. However, it is now disappearing because we are more interested in destroying the environment. We are tilling the land to plant beans and maize. We are also cutting trees to burn charcoal rather than protect the land for our wildlife. Again, I would like the Ministry to issue an order that some parts of this country should not be cultivated. They should be protected for wildlife conservation. This is because wildlife is a major source of income for this country. With those few remarks, I beg to support."
}